April 25, 2013

FAREA AL-MUSLIMI, YEMENI, BOSTON AND DRONES

Did you even know the US was killing people in Yemen with our tax dollars? We're sewing the seeds of hatred and violence all over the world. And we act surprised when muslim brothers bomb us in Boston? Muslim terrorists act in solidarity with their brothers--whether in Indonesia, Somalia, Yemen or Chechen. This young man claims that US drone strikes are the most effective recruitment tool for extremists. And that the "dangerous" man the US was targeting wasn't even a terrorist, but rather someone who could have been easily captured on the ground by any farmer. Rather than killing 5 needlessly. He recalls the time he spent in the US as a student the high point of his life.
FAREA AL-MUSLIMI: "What Wessab’s villagers knew of the U.S. was based on my stories about my wonderful experiences here. The friendships and values I experienced and described to the villagers helped them understand the America that I know and that I love. Now, however, when they think of America, they think of the terror they feel from the drones that hover over their heads, ready to fire missiles at any time. What the violent militants had previously failed to achieve, one drone strike accomplished in an instant. There is now an intense anger against America in Wessab.
This is not an isolated incident. The drone strikes are the face of America to many Yemenis. I have spoken to many victims of U.S. drone strikes, like a mother in Jaar who had to identify her innocent 18-year-old son’s body through a video in a stranger’s cellphone, or the father in Shaqra who held his four- and six-year-old children as they died in his arms. Recently in Aden, I spoke with one of the tribal leaders present in 2009 at the place where the U.S. cruise missiles targeted the village of al-Majalah in Lawdar, Abyan. More than 40 civilians were killed, including four pregnant women. The tribal leader and others tried to rescue the victims, but the bodies were so decimated that it was impossible to differentiate between those of children, women and their animals. Some of these innocent people were buried in the same grave as their animals."
JEREMY SCAHILL: "Because the United States doesn’t have any actual intelligence on the ground in Yemen, they’ve taken to doing these signature strikes where they develop a pattern of life, and they say, if people are in a certain region of Yemen or Pakistan or Somalia—if people are in a certain region and they’re of military age—they could be anywhere from 15 to 70 years old—and they fit some kind of a pattern of other people we believe to be terrorists, then they become legitimate targets. So it’s the most horrific form of pre-crime. They don’t know the identities of the people that they’re killing. They don’t know whether they’ve been involved with any activity. They’re killed for who they might be or they might one day become."
It's wonderful that Boston's rescue team worked so effectively to minimize the loss of lives. But if the US wasn't creating new enemies around the world every almost everyday, we wouldn't have to worry as much about that. This guy's testimony to Congress yesterday has gone viral. The Obama administration declined sending a representative to hear him. And Obama appointed "the drone guy", John Brennan, as CIA director and has greatly increased drone attacks since Bush. But these attacks aren't making us safer if they're highly effective recruiting tools for future terrorist to strike at the US. It's called connecting the dots. Do you prefer excellent crisis response teams or fewer crises that they'd need to respond to?
"Does do unto others" ring a bell with anyone out there?